EB Porter ... Dictionary?

[BackyardBrewer]

11 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Brown malt is commonly used but it requires a mash. You can get a great porter without it though, I make one with black patent, crystal, chocolate and a small amount of roasted barley. Turns out really well when fermented with s04 yeast. 

Theres the roast barley again! Its all good though, what lovibond crystal do you use and would Nottingham be a good substitute for S04 as thats what i have atm? And black patent, ive seen that one in recipes, is it a flavour malt or just for colour?

[Shamus O'Sean]

I find that S-04 finishes at a higher FG. That's okay if you want a sweeter beer.  Next time I get some Nottingham I'll be making a starter and harvesting some for future brews.  It is my preference to S-04.

[BackyardBrewer]

I did a recipe kit from country brewer with S04 a few months back and i wasnt a fan of the flavour from the yeast

[Journeyman]

13 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

I find that S-04 finishes at a higher FG. That's okay if you want a sweeter beer.  Next time I get some Nottingham I'll be making a starter and harvesting some for future brews.  It is my preference to S-04.

The Nott is my goto yeast. The IanH SS has it at a lower than most sources, showing 75% attenuation but I think it should be higher and I've seen it listed as up to 80%. Add to that the ability to ferment down to 10° and up to 22° it seems the ideal yeast for general brewing. I'm still learning but haven't really branched out into yeast characters yet - once I get fully repeatable results from other changes to my brews I will try some of the specialty yeasts. Given the success of my EB approximation I thought the first move might be to an Englis-style yeast for one of those and see what the difference might be.

[Otto Von Blotto]

19 hours ago, Tempestlight said:

Theres the roast barley again! Its all good though, what lovibond crystal do you use and would Nottingham be a good substitute for S04 as thats what i have atm? And black patent, ive seen that one in recipes, is it a flavour malt or just for colour?

It's only like 50g or something I think, in stouts I use more like 500g roasted barley. I like a slight hint of roast but not dominant in porters. The crystal is medium, it's specified on the Craftbrewer website that I bought it from but probably somewhere around 130-140 lovibond. Black patent is there for both flavour and colour. It's the largest portion of dark malts in that recipe.

Nottingham will make it drier, I wouldn't use it in my recipe but not all recipes are the same obviously. 

[kosty]

First time post.

Put this down today:

Coopers English bitter kit

1.5 kg Coopers light LME

250g choc malt

200g medium crystal

80g roasted barley

200g brown sugar

20g Fuggles 10 min

Nottingham yeast

21l 

OG 1052

Planning on waiting til Christmas to drink - 6 months (depending on how long I can wait). I use coopers carbonation drops as I'm time poor and they seem to work fine for me, would I use 1 drop instead of 2 for a longneck? 

Cheers 

[Shamus O'Sean]

Hi @kosty and welcome to the Forum.

The answer is it depends on your preference.  If you like your beer less carbonated, then one drop will be fine.  I prefer my beer with good carbonation, so I would use two.  However, I could not wait until Christmas for this beer.  That is another reason for me to use two drops.

I did the Russian Imperial Stout a while ago and did most of the bottles with equivalent to one drop.  They were carbonated fine.  The ones I did with two carbonation drops worth of sugar were also early on, but probably too fizzy six months down the track.

Maybe do some with two drops, for earlier drinking and some with one drop for aging.

[kosty]

Hey @Shamus O'Sean and thanks. 

 

Yep, as do I, I like good carbonation. It's the first time I will have aged a beer for this long. I like your idea though which I will try. That way I can taste after 2 or 3 months, then compare later on. It will be hard to wait that's for sure, I tasted it straight out of the FV and oh man it's already delicious haha! 

[King Ruddager]

If you can wait until Christmas it will be amazing.

Perhaps if you use two drops, also make a couple of bottles with just one. You can mark them and compare the difference for next time.

[kosty]

I tasted last night after 2 months in the bottle. Easily my best brew so far. Amazing! Carbonation is spot on (2 carb drops). Such a treat on a cold winter night. Will try another in a month. Thanks @King Ruddager for the YouTube inspo.